Opinion - Top opinion

POSTED: Thursday, Oct. 08, 2009

Good data can help schools, if certain groups allow it

In political circles, everyone agrees that education is the state's top priority.

And then they stop agreeing.

But I figured there was one section of House Bill 2261, last session's controversial education reform legislation, that all the players could endorse - a new data collection and analysis system to track student progress, measure the teacher corps, analyze costs and increase accountability.

The section wasn't adopted in a vacuum. The federal government's $5.3 billion Race to the Top program requires states that want a chunk of that money to develop data systems to improve student learning, teacher performance, and college and career readiness.

Having good data sounds pretty basic. But the state is starved for real information about its schools, collecting data mostly to make sure districts are in compliance with federal and state regulations. It doesn't even have a way of tracking individual students so their records follow when they change schools or districts.

So getting, reporting and acting on data has been a priority of Sen. Eric Oemig, D-Kirkland, since he took office in 2007.

"How do you change a system that is entrenched?" Oemig asked. "You make compelling cases supported by data." But he remembers the initial reaction.

"My first year, everyone was 'Data What?' Now it's, 'of course we need data,'" he said. "It's a big transformation."

In its report urging the state to pursue Race to the Top dollars, the League of Education Voters Foundation wrote: "Making better use of data - to evaluate schools and improve classroom instruction - is the foundation to any substantive reform."

So, it's agreed then. We need better information to improve learning in Washington.

Yeah, not so fast. These are education politics, after all, where nothing is simple and agreement is scarce. The National Education Association, unhappy with the Race to the Top program in general, has come out against the "inappropriate use" of data - especially tying individual student performance information to individual teachers.

"By requiring teacher evaluations based on test scores as a condition for receiving (Race to the Top) funds, the federal government again attempts to interfere with collective bargaining laws," the NEA wrote to federal Education Secretary Arne Duncan in August.

The Washington Education Association agrees.

"Using individual student test scores to assess individual teachers isn't an accurate or appropriate way to use that information, and it's not what teachers need to improve student achievement," said Rich Wood, spokesman for the teachers union.

Oemig agrees that single test scores don't reveal much.

"It tells you the temperature of a kid. But it doesn't tell you whether he started hot or cold or whether he got warmer or colder," Oemig said. You need at least two data points to show change. But he thinks classroom data must be collected and reported and be a part of assessing teachers and schools.

Some districts are searching for better ways to get and use test data. One is to compare test results from the start of a school year with those in the middle and the end. That way an individual student's progress under an individual teacher could be measured. But districts are just beginning to frequently use common assessments throughout the school year, and few in Olympia have the stomach to mandate even more testing on schools and school districts.

HB 2261 also calls for the development of teacher evaluation methods including one key assessment to determine whether beginning teachers can advance to permanent status. The law also requires the state board to complete work on a means of pushing failing schools to improve and sanctioning those that do not.

In both cases, hard data is needed. But gathering it and analyzing it raises many of the political issues that have slowed reform efforts for decades.

Oemig, however, opposes attempts to block collection or reporting of data just because it raises political objections.

"You can never convince me you should stop looking at those things because you're afraid of it," he said.

Peter Callaghan writes for The News Tribune in Tacoma. E-mail him: peter.Callaghan@thenewstribune.com